Ex-Socker Karic Scores Six Goals in Crunch Victory

Call him a six-shooter.

And Friday, former Sockers forward Zoran Karic used his former teammates for target practice.

Karic scored six goals and one assist to lead the Cleveland Crunch to an 11-6 Major Soccer League victory against the Sockers in front of 3,248 at the Richfield Coliseum.

He became the first player to score six goals in a MSL game since the Sockers’ Branko Segota accomplished the feat Dec. 4, 1987 against the now-defunct Cleveland Force.

“I’ve never scored more than a hat trick in the MSL before tonight,” said Karic, who was traded March 7 to Cleveland for forward Paul Wright, “and the fact it comes against my former team makes it extra special for me.”

Karic’s double hat trick snapped a five-game losing streak for the Crunch. For the Sockers (9-10), a four-game winning streak was snapped.

He had two goals in the final 15 minutes of play to put the game out of reach for the Crunch, who entered the fourth quarter with a 6-5 lead.

“It took an unbelievable effort on Zoran’s part to put this one away,” Crunch Coach Kai Haaskivi said. “I thought he was never going to get tired scoring, but we needed every one of them, as close as things were to that point.”

Karic could have scored a seventh goal in the final 47 seconds of play, but elected to pass off to teammate Hector Marinaro for an open-net goal against.

“Some people think I’m a selfish player,” Karic said. “But, I’ve never thought of myself in those terms. Hector stole the ball and passed it to me and I had an open net, but I passed it back to Hector. He stole the ball, the goal was too easy and I felt it should be his since he had made the steal.”

Sockers Coach Ron Newman was dismayed by his team’s defense.

“I’m not trying to take anything away from Zoran, but I didn’t see a goal out there tonight that any of them (Cleveland) deserved,” Newman said. “Tonight was just a nightmare of errors for our defense, and somehow we were still in the game until the end.”

Waad Hirmez scored on a rebound of his own shot to give the Sockers a 1-0 lead, but Karic took a header from teammate Michael King 45 seconds later and scored to tie the game with 2:14 gone.

Crunch midfielder Andy Schmetzer put Cleveland on top, 2-1, and King got his 15th goal of the season at the 12:17 mark, from 30 feet away.

The Sockers answered with goals by Sockers midfielder Brian Quinn and Michael Collins.

The third quarter belonged to Karic. He scored 38 seconds into the period and again at 7:21 to give the Crunch a 5-3 lead.

The two goals gave him his first hat trick of the season. The first goal came on a 12-footer from the left of the Crunch goal off a pass from Schmetzer. The second came on a left-foot shot from 25 feet away, with Marinaro getting the assist.

Socker forward Paul Wright then cut the Crunch lead to 5-4 with his 14th goal of the season, but Karic responded with his fourth goal of the game 1:02 later.

Hirmez then scored his second goal of the night, taking a restart pass from Segota and slamming it past Cleveland goalie Otto Orf from 15 feet out.

The Sockers’ fourth-quarter goal came only 1:53 into the period, with Segota scoring unassisted to cut the Crunch lead to 7-6.